But Jeanie must rise and lift little Tammie, and try again; and as she looked wistfully over the dark Marsh, she saw some one taller and more agile than herself, springing step by step over the dangerous pools.
“It’s only a woman,” said Jeanie to herself, sadly; but immediately the little heart rose and grew courageous: “It’s the mistress!”
She had cured Helen. The cheek of the young schoolmistress of Fendie was glowing through the rain as if it never could be pale. Peter himself, the embryo fisherman, had never leaped those gleaming pools more bravely than Helen did. It was somewhat hard for an amusement to other than boyhood, but it made her eyes sparkle and her heart beat; she had never been blyther than she was now.
He was a serious weight, that little blubbering Tammie, and was somewhat afraid of the honour of being lifted in the arms of the mistress. It awed him into silence; and Jeanie ventured to pause, to rescue her shoe. The mistress assured her that the pool was not so deep after all, and Jeanie forgot her fears.
It was rather a dreary scene; the rain sweeping down heavier every moment, till against the lowering sky it began to look white, carried on the wind, like long, trailing skirts of some stiff silken garment; a little below, the tawny roaring Firth, making way sullen and strong over his shores, and lashing up on the shingle in long curls of foam, like a lion’s mane; and here the raindrops pattering in the ghostly pools, and the little girl at Helen’s feet forcing on the recovered shoe, and restraining her weeping in hysteric sobs, while Helen herself grasped the waist of the heavy Tammie with both her hands, and gathered up her dress for the laborious progress to the road.
A passer-by who came in sight on an ascending road at some distance hurried forward in fear for them when he looked down. There was no need: as he reached the edge of the Marsh, Helen cleared the last pool. Her dress was thoroughly wet; she had made one or two stumbles, but her rapid movements seemed more graceful, and her face was brighter, the banker Oswald thought, than when he saw her last in the drawing-room of the Manse; for Mr Oswald was the passer-by—and in the heavy rain and gathering darkness, with only the children to prevent their being alone, he was standing face to face with Helen Buchanan.
The little Tammie was rather a pretty child, and considering how his careful sister and he had spent the afternoon, was a very tolerably clean one; for the pools were very clear, and neither dust nor mud were on the Marsh; so as Helen set him on the ground, and bent down to help and console Jeanie, who had painfully followed her, they made by no means an ungraceful group—if we except the stout, perplexed elderly gentleman with the umbrella, who, not much less shy than Helen, stood with confused hesitation looking at them, and not knowing what to say.
A nervous tremor had come upon the young schoolmistress; half of it was physical, and proceeded from the unusual exertion she had made, and half of it owned her consciousness of the presence of William Oswald’s father. It was natural to her; the fingers which rested on little Jeanie’s shoulder trembled a good deal, and Helen’s attitude and glowing face were shy—a shyness which was at the same time frank, and an awkwardness by no means ungraceful. The banker meanwhile stood before her and her little protégés, and held his umbrella over his own head, and grew slightly red in the face. But there was no remnant of gracefulness in the embarrassment of the respectable Mr Oswald. The good man felt a little afraid of the shy, unquiet girl, wondered rather what she would say to him, and felt very much at a loss for something to say to her.
There were sounds of loud, boyish footsteps on the road, as Helen, stooping down, wrapped up the children as she best could to defend them from the rain.
“Eh!” exclaimed a voice corresponding to the feet, as Hector Maxwell of Firthside and his brother came up out of breath; “it’s Miss Buchanan—I knew it was Miss Buchanan—and she’s droukit. Here’s my plaid—take my plaid, Miss Buchanan! We’ve run a’ the road from the brae, because we saw you on the Marsh, and if you had just waited—”